Craft Research

I'm at the IFFTI conference in Taiwan; a report of the excellent two days to come soon. In the meanwhile, I just wanted to flag a promising new journal edited by Kristina Niedderer and Katherine Townsend: Craft Research from Intellect Ltd. It was a pleasure to meet Katherine and hear about the journal. From the website:

Aims and Scope

Craft Research is the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to developing and advancing contemporary craft practice and theory through research. Its purpose is to portray and build the crafts as a vital and viable discipline that offers a vision for the future through its ability to explore and challenge technology, to question and develop cultural and social practices, and to interrogate and affirm philosophical and human values.

Call for Papers

Craft Research welcomes contributions from new and established researchers, scholars, and professionals around the world who wish to make a contribution to advancing the crafts.
Contributions may include research into materials, technology, processes, methods, concepts, aesthetic and philosophy in any discipline area of the applied arts and crafts, including craft education. Accepted formats include full research papers, position papers, reports on research linking craft and industry, craft-researcher portraits, and reviews of research exhibitions and conferences.

it's here!

I met Janet Hethorn nearly three years ago in Denmark, where she asked me if I'd be interested in contributing a chapter to a book she was planning with an associate, Connie Ulasewicz. It was around this time last year that the final drafts went in. Waiting for me at my desk today:


(Finally, an excuse to use the built-in webcam at work. The book is available here.)

new journal from Berg: Fashion Practice

First came the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, and now there is a new journal from Berg, Fashion Practice, The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry. From the Berg website:

This is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to cover the full range of contemporary design and manufacture within the context of the fashion industry. Design processes and new technologies fuel the most vibrant areas of fashion practice and commerce today, yet they have been largely ignored by scholarship. Fashion Practice fills this major gap by providing a much-needed forum for topics ranging from design theory to the impact of technology, economics and industry on fashion practice. The journal also covers the cultural ramifications of these isues upon the larger fashion sphere. Interdisciplinary in approach, Fashion Practice will address, broadly, the business of fashion, including some or all of the following topics:

• innovation in fashion design and practice
• sustainability and ethics within the industry
• micro-and nano-technologies within the fashion context
• 'smart' textiles and digital fashion
• materials, design, concepts and process
• fashion consumption and production from retail/e-tail to performance fashion
• new developments in fashion and clothing retail

The journal encourages submissions from scholars and practitioners working specifically within fashion / apparel, design and business departments, as well as those working on the creative industries from a broad range of social science perspectives.

To have two new such journals emerge in one year is great; there has been somewhat of a void in opportunities to publish research on fashion design practice in journals. Seeing Fashion Theory and Fashion Practice listed next to each other on the Berg website makes one wonder why this didn't come about earlier. But better late than never. The advisory board looks most impressive.

the designer genius

A while back I commented on Kathleen Fasanella's blog that I sometimes fantasise of there being some legal protection for the term 'fashion designer'. It was mainly an emotional response after two recent requests for work, from people that were utterly clueless. Once upon a time I was not very choosy at all as to who I worked for, but now I simply say no to anyone that needs to have fusing explained, not to mention the notches on patterns, why it's ideal to follow the grainline I've drawn on the pattern, etc.

Reading Kate Fletcher's book on the flight today, I discovered a very different view, carefully considered (not that I'd expect anything else from the author), and found myself learning and agreeing. The final chapter, 'User Maker', is critical of how "the industry controls and 'professionalizes' the practice of designing and making clothes" (p. 187). According to Fletcher, this results in "passive fashion" and deskilled consumers reluctant to customise, repair and transform the increasingly homogenised clothes on offer (I will rewrite the paper I presented at Dressing Rooms in Oslo last year, after I've finished with the book). Fletcher is critical of the myth-building by the industry - the designer as a creative genius - and this is where my pulse went up; it's an issue that has annoyed me for years. Read almost any article or book about a fashion designer (Colin McDowell's books on Galliano and Gaultier come to mind first) and there you see it: the designer presented as a creative artist. You see, in the early phases of the project I was trying to find out how fashion designers actually work, so I could eventually perhaps understand how fashion designers might work in a zero-waste situation. There isn't much out there, that isn't dressed up in the mythology of fashion design. One might as well watch The Bold and the Beautiful. I tried to categorise fashion design and patternmaking practices at Nordes, and whilst I see holes in the thinking of that paper, it is something I will take further as the project progresses.

But back to Fletcher's ideas. I certainly love the idea of a garment that is not finished when the designer thinks it is, in the sense that it may later transform into something more special in the hands of the consumer. Cameron Tonkinwise has written about this in Design Philosophy Papers (Issue 3, 2004), about design that is not finished, about things that can keep on keeping, I think he put it. It's a beautiful paper - read it.

I'd go on but the internet cafe in Melbourne doubles as a sauna, apparently - I'm literally dripping. Tomorrow, for the papers!

information wanted: Andrew Hague

In Kate Fletcher's book there is a photo of a shirt (p. 153) by Andrew Hague, described as "efficient pattern cutting concept shirt to address wastage". I did Google searches for 'Andrew Hague fashion' and 'Andrew Hague patterncutting', with little success in the first five or so results pages. I did find this, the MySpace of a Andrew Hague. I will contact him later, to see if he's the one. I should contact Fletcher, too, to ask for more information and thank her for the book (a must!). But, if you know more, please email me on timo.i.rissanen at gmail.com For whatever reason, there is no reference to Hague in the body of the book.

Oh, and the book with my chapter in it should be out by mid-April - I just got word on the weekend that there has been a slight delay. I'm still not completely over my embarrassment that the chapter includes no reference to the research work of Deborah K. Burnham but naturally I will rectify this in any future publications. Thanks to Kathleen Fasanella and Alexandra Palmer for introducing me to her work. On Palmer, the latest issue of Fashion Theory has a fabulous article by her, with a fascinating account of her education at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under Stella Blum, during the Diana Vreeland era. In fact, the entire issue, on fashion exhibitions, is fantastic, and I'm finding it really helpful as I find myself involved in three different exhibitions over the next 18 months. One is, of course, my PhD exhibition, I'm contributing to the catalogue of one by two colleagues and I'm co-curating one for 2009.

misc.

Models smiling at Hussein Chalayan. Who would have thought?

Via a Google alert on eco-fashion came this. Whilst I have absolute respect for people with convictions, 'eco-fashion' and vegan fashion are not the same thing. I don't know, it's like a thousand 'fashion is bad' posts I've read before and speaks to the converted only.

Excitingly, a new journal: International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, from Taylor & Francis. Call for Papers is downloadable from the button at top. From the 'Aims and Scope':

Aims & Scope

International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education aims to provide a high quality peer-reviewed forum for research in fashion design, pattern cutting, apparel production, manufacturing technology and fashion education. The Journal will encourage interdisciplinary research and the development of an academic community which will share newly developed technology, theory and techniques in the fashion and textile industries, as well as promote the development of excellent education practice in the clothing and textile fields.

Contributions suitable for this new journal should fall into one of the following three categories:

(1) Research papers presenting important new findings
(2) Technical papers describing new developments or innovation
(3) Academic discussion papers dealing with medium to long-term trends and predictions.

All published research articles in this journal have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous refereeing by independent expert referees.